For as long as I can remember
I have enriched my life by sampling the contributions of others
I did so through school and for leisure
but always with an educational, professional
or inspirational goal in mind.
I always expected that the day would come
when I too would be sharing what I know with others.
It doesn’t seem right that anyone should be
a giver only or a taker only
It’s the sharing that makes life interesting.
I have many regrets
but this one weighs particularly heavily on me today
because it is clearer than ever,
that I will never get to give.
Sure, there are always things one can give
especially when you have a family that depends on you
but I am talking about giving what you want to give
and not what you are expected to give.
I am talking about giving with joy and passion
and not just out of duty.
That’s the kind of giving I don’t get to give
and it saddens me deeply.

1. Activities aimed at caring for my house and family
2. Activities that aimed keeping me entertained
3. Activities aimed at changing my life

1. Activities aimed at caring for my house and family

I spend between 1 and 2 hours on these activities which is clearly not enough
but better than it used to be.
I clean my kitchen. I do dishes, laundry, floors.
I also clean my bathroom
but I do very little overall maintenance of my house outside of those things.
For many years not, I also got up in the morning to prepare the kids for school.
I’m getting a little break from that right now.
I don’t cook but I do make breakfast for Yanni
and help with the big brunches on the weekends.
I have just about no social life.
I see a friend a handful of time in one year
but I do have pen friends I write to regularly.
My husband and I rarely go out together.
We do so mainly to celebrate anniversaries or at Christmas.

2. Activities that aimed keeping me entertained

This takes the form of reading, watching documentary films and writing.
Most of what I read about or watch is non fiction
much of it is educational.
I’m interested in history, anthropology, biology ,medicine, law, crime and of course venom.
I don’t have any crafty sort of hobbies.
I don’t sew, knit, paint or anything like that.
I don’t participate in any sports.
Walking the dog in warm weather is the only exercise I get.
But entertaining myself is what I spend the most time on.
Sounds like I’m lucky, right?
Not really because it feels more and more pointless.

3. Activities aimed at changing my life

There are two things I work on in respect to changing my life.
One of them has to do with finding work and the other has to do with finding friends.

Finding work has been a major preoccupation for most of my life.
Sometimes my job search is realistic, sometimes it isn’t
Most of the jobs that interest me are jobs I am not qualified for
and that search unleashes a lot of anger towards myself
for having given up on my studies too soon.
The jobs I am qualified for , I have zero interest in
and being qualified for them doesn’t mean I am able to perform them.
I suck at non specialized work
because of my ADD and because of my emotional problem.
Also because I hate them.
That never helps.
Oh and finding a job is complicated by the fact that I worry about leaving my dog at home
and I feel terribly guilty about it.
Which is way I can’t wait for my husband to retire.
I don’t mind leaving the dog with my husband because the dog loves my husband
and my husband takes good care of him.

Finding friends is an on again , off again obsession
complicated by the fact that the people I most want to be friends with
have no interest in me or need for me.
And the people who in that past have manifested in interest in me
are more often then not people I have no interest in.
I also tend to attract domineering types which is not good for me.
I have tried joining groups and so far , that has not worked for me
for the same reasons stated above.
Another factor complicates my efforts to get a social life.
I can’t afford to go out and I am not mobile.
I can’t afford to spend $30 on a lunch date plus $20 on transportation
just so I can go hang out with a girl friend.
I just can’t spare it.
Oh and , my reluctance to leave the do alone also affects my efforts to have a social life.
I can only go out when my husband is home.
If at least , I could have some sort of meaningful interaction with my family members, that would help. But it isn’t the case.

Every day , I have to make decisions i
n terms of how time I will devote to each one of these activities.
The temptation of course, is to spend all day entertaining myself
and escaping my pain and frustrated needs that way.
But I start with a sprint to clean my house.
My next move is more ambiguous.
As time goes by,
I realize that if I am to have any chance at all
of making real changes in my life
I have to devote as much time as possible to my job search.
But more often then not, my impulse is to escape.
That’s because I don’t really believe that I have a shot at it.
And I am afraid to entertain hope.

There was a patient on Grey’s Anatomy
who said that the worst enemy of a dying person is not death,
it’s hope.
It really hit a chord with me.
Hope can be dangerous.
The second I dare to hope that I can have a better life
a more fulfilling life, a more meaningful life
I am setting myself up for a huge disappointment
which in terms leads to deep depression.
Yet, I can’t give up completely.
I just can’t….
So once in a while ,
I kick myself in the *** so hard
I can almost taste my toes.
And I go through the moves,
send the job application,
follow up on another,
meet with an employment counselled
etc etc
all the while preparing for the next fall into the abyss

It’s the same with my need to develop a social life.
Once in a while, manage to muster the courage
to contact someone in the hopes that it will lead to something.
But that fall is probably even scarier
because I am being rejected based on who I am
-or rather, who I am not-
rather than being rejected for a lack of specific work related skills.

“If your problem has no solution, there is no use worrying about it.
If your problem has a solution, there is no use worrying about it”.

So clever. But sometimes there is a solution that is not completely impossible but which lies so far outside your reach, that you torture yourself trying to get at it. Like a carrot dangling just a millimeter away from where your fingers can reach. And you think that maybe if you contort yourself enough, you might reach it. That’s when “worrying” might have a purpose, although it’s probably not the right term. It’s more of a puzzling / mental straining kind of thing. That is how I live. And that is where I live. In that little space between near remote possibility and near impossibility.

For example, how to you go from being a molecular biologist working with venomous animals in a University at the end of planet to something more realistic for a 51 year old Canadian mother of 5 with a mild case of agoraphobia? There lies the challenge.
Finding that Plan B (or C or D)

I felt like I had made humongous strides of maturity in the past decade.
Despite my challenges, I did think of myself as wiser.
I even credit myself for overcoming many of the symptoms of my personality disorder
But ever since Eve , my middle daughter came back to live with us
I feel I have regressed to a more emotional infantile place.
Her criticism and hostility bring me to tears
and make me feel like I don’t want to live anymore.
I know it’s crazy.
She’s just a selfish teen and I have four other children
but she has exploited me extensively over the past year.
Not only has she not apologized but she torments me continuously
regarding my mothering skills
I will be honest
I will never get the mother of the year award.
I don’t cook or bake, I don’t sew or knit, I barely clean and tidy up
I have little to give them in terms of material goods
(though they never lacked anything important)
I don’t carpool because I don’t drive.
I am terrible at discipline
But I have always been emotionally supportive
and accessible to my kids.
I suppose you could say I have been their best friend
and not their mother.
But isn’t worth something in the balance?

We are not going to change our kids
We need to accept them as they are
But why is it so hard for them to accept US as WE are?
Why is it so difficult for them to focus on the nice things we do for them
or the aspects of our personalities that they enjoy
rather than always seek the negative and condemn us for it?
Eve even said that the few things I did for her that were nice didn’t mater,
they were not important.
Yet everything she didn’t get from me is of ultimate important.
Meanwhile, I have been treating her the exact opposite way.
I have accepted her flaws, even downplayed them
and I have celebrated anything positive she did
no matter how small.

I wonder also why it is
that the minute I blunder
no matter how small the blunder
and no matter how rare,
it becomes the only thing that matters
It doesn’t matter that I did a million good things
over the 17 years that I have been her mom.
Everything I did for her is erased.
All that remains is the that screw up.
The one thing I said “no” to.
The one comment that could have been more sensitive.
It’s like what they say about Hollywood
that you are only as good as the last thing you did.

You would think that a person with such a large nuclear family
could not possibly feel alone and disconnected.
Add to that mother, sister, brothers and a few friends
it’s ludicrous to affirm that I am indeed alone and disconnected
and desperately so.

I don’t feel that I have anything to offer my family
nothing that I would respond to their true needs
And they have nothing to offer me either,
I wish them well as I’m sure all but one do,
and if anything were to happen to any one of us
I’m sure it would be devastating
But it is not the same thing
as saying that we truly enjoy each other’s company,
that we grow in each other’s company,
and that we become better people for being in each other’s lives.

My mom, although she was very loving
did not equip me for the real world
just as I have not equipped my children for the real world
She was not able to teach me survival skills
or perhaps I was not listening.
But she is exactly what I never want to be
and any comparison with her makes me feel very uneasy.
I am guessing that this is how my children feel about me.
Some of them hint at it once in a while,
some are more vocal
and one makes sure I know she has no appreciation or respect for me.

After 30 years of relationship
I should probably feel a sense of accomplishment
that I am still married to the same man.
But a shared history isn’t enough to feel connected
especially when that history is horrendous
and I am greatly to blame for it.
You would think it would endear him to me
that he stuck by me despite ruining his life
but it doesn’t.
I hate him for hating me.

Professionally speaking,
I have no connection at all
either to a specific job or a field of work
I can’t even get or keep a non specialized job
not that I even want to anyway.
Money has appeal in that it could potentially provide me with an escape
but with all the debts and needs we have,
an escape would be impossible.
Plus, I can never really escape me
which is who I most want to escape.

University was the time of my life where I felt the most connected
but it wouldn’t be that way today.
I am too old to go back to school
and can’t afford to anyway.
But even if I could, I would be more than two times the age of other students
and perhaps even some of the professors.
Plus, it would be near impossible to learn
in the kind of environment that I am in right now.
In order to devote myself to something like this
I would practically have to live alone on campus.
Although I am mostly useless to my family
I know this would not be tolerated

I look at our beta is his fish
I often have to make sure he’s still alive
It’s hard to tell since he’s often lying to one side at the bottom of bowl.
Perhaps he is the only thing on this earth I truly feel connected to
if only in the sense that I identify with it.

As time goes by, perceived solutions are fewer and fewer
They are also less and less satisfying
Every avenue I consider makes me wonder
“what would be the point”?

Am I suffering from depression or chronic boredom?
Everything that I do feels utterly pointless.
I am just one more animal fighting for its survival
and the survival of its young.
But I contributed nothing to my world
other than spreading my defective genes
and hence making sure that they get passed on.

Most people seem satisfied
with a roof, a family and a hobby.
It was never enough for me.
To me, that is the most mundane life one can have.
I needed to rise above this
but because I am so dysfunctional
I sabotaged any possibility of doing so.

Just like some people are famous for being famous.
I live only to be alive
Nevertheless, I can’t escape adversity.

If I am doomed to a dumb life
let me sail through the boredom and the meaninglessness
with the least possible conflict
Don’t make me fight for it.
Don’t make me justify
my dumb life.